Sunday, June 24, 2012

Call Me Crazy


My Utmost For His Highest

‘If you refuse to agree with the fact that there is wickedness and selfishness, something downright hateful and wrong, in human beings, when it attacks your life, instead of reconciling yourself to it, you will compromise with it and say that it is of no use to battle against it. Have you taken this “hour, and the power of darkness” into account, or do you have a view of yourself which includes no recognition of sin whatsoever? In your human relationships and friendships, have you reconciled yourself to the fact of sin? If not, just around the next corner you will find yourself trapped and you will compromise with it. But if you will reconcile yourself to the fact of sin, you will realize the danger immediately and say, “Yes, I see what this sin would mean.” The recognition of sin does not destroy the basis of friendship— it simply establishes a mutual respect for the fact that the basis of sinful life is disastrous.’ CHAMBERS

What is your experience with sin since you have become a Christian?  Do you find yourself still compromising with it?  You know that something is wrong, but you do it anyway.  People who care about you tell you to not do something, and you do it anyway?  The Spirit in you tells you that you should not do something … and you do it anyway?  Have you found that it has been disasterous in your life and relationships?  But you did it again … anyway?  Frustrating isn’t it?  Paul talked about this same frustration in Romans 7.

Romans 7:18-25  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.  (19)  For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.  (20)  Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.  (21)  I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.  (22)  For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.  (23)  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.  (24)  O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  (25)  I thank God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Like Paul, we know what we are doing is wrong, yet we do it anyway.  I have so been there.  If we try to reason with sin … resist sin by sheer determination .. compromise with sin … we will fail and the results will be disasterous … deadly even .. for us and others  .. sin will kill relationships … deeply wound the heart .. and separate us from intimate fellowship with God …

The problem is that we are trying to live our new life on our own power, through the strength of our will .. .even though we know we could not do it on our own before .. what makes us think that we can do it on our own now.  Ephesians 6  tells us to put on the full armor of God .. that our struggle with sin is a spiritual battle and we must use spiritual weapons to defeat it .. we cannot defeat sin on our own.

Someone once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.  So with respect to our battle with sin .. we are crazy to think that this time we will not give in if we are trusting in ourselves.

So what does that mean as far as you being a Christian?  That you have blown it .. that you had your pass to go to heaven taken away? NO!  But you do need to return to the One who saved you.  1 John 1:9 says that if [and when] we confess our sin He is faithful to forgive us and to cleanse us [restore us in fellowship with Him].

Put your trust in God and let your light shine

Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)

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